Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Luther often vaunted the wholesome effects of beer. In a letter to Katey dated February 1, 1546, he extols the aperient qualities of Naumburg beer. In another to Jonas, dated May 15, 1542, he speaks of the good that beer had done in relieving his sufferings from stone; beer was to be preferred to wine; much benefit was also to be derived from a strict diet.

  All these traits from Luther’s private life, taken as a whole, may be considered to confirm the opinion expressed above, f., regarding the charges which may stand against him and those of which he is to be acquitted.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  LUTHER AND MELANCHTHON

  1. Melanchthon in the Service of Lutheranism, 1518-30

  When Melanchthon was called upon to represent Lutheranism officially at the Diet of Augsburg, while the real head of the innovation remained in the seclusion of the Coburg (vol. ii., ), he had already been in the closest spiritual relation with Luther for twelve years.

  The talented young man who had given promise of the highest achievements in the domain of humanism, and who had taken up his residence at Wittenberg with the intention of devoting his academic career more particularly to the Greek classics, soon fell under Luther’s influence. Luther not only loved and admired him, but was, all along, determined to exploit, in the interests of his new theology, the rare gifts of a friend and colleague thirteen years his junior. Melanchthon not only taught the classics, but, after a while, announced a series of lectures on the Epistle to Titus. It was due to Luther that he thus gave himself up more to divinity and eventually cultivated it side by side with humanism. “With all his might” Luther “drove him to study theology.” Melanchthon’s “Loci communes” or elements of theology, a scholastically conceived work on the main doctrines of Lutheranism, was one of the results of Luther’s efforts to profit by the excellent gifts of the colleague — who he was convinced had been sent him by Providence — in formulating his theology and in demolishing the olden doctrine of the Church. The “Loci” proved to be a work of fundamental importance for Luther’s cause.

  The character of the “Loci,” at once methodic and positive, indicated the lines on which Melanchthon as a theologian was afterwards to proceed. He invented nothing, his aim being rather to clothe Luther’s ideas in clear, comprehensive and scholastic language — so far as this could be done. His carefully chosen wording, together with his natural dislike for exaggeration or unnecessary harshness of expression, helped him in many instances so to tone down what was offensive in Luther’s doctrines and opinions as to render them, in their humanistic dress, quite acceptable to many scholars. As a matter of fact, however, all his polish and graceful rhetoric often merely served to conceal the lack of ideas, or the contradictions. The great name he had won for himself in the field of humanism by his numerous publications, which vied with those of Reuchlin and Erasmus — his friends called him “praeceptor Germaniae” — went to enhance the importance of his theological works amongst those who either sided with Luther or were wavering.

  Earlier Relations of Luther with Melanchthon.

  As professor, Melanchthon had at the outset an audience of from five to six hundred, and, later, his hearers numbered as many as 1500. He was perfectly aware that this was due to the renown which the University of Wittenberg had acquired through Luther, and the success of their common enterprise bound him still more closely to the ecclesiastical innovation. To the very end of his life he laboured in the interests of Lutheranism in the lecture-hall, at religious disputations, by his printed works, his memoranda, and his letters, by gaining new friends and by acting as intermediary when dissension threatened. — In his translation of the Bible Luther found a most willing and helpful adviser in this expert linguist. It is worthy of note that he never took the degree of Doctor of Divinity or showed the slightest desire to be made equal to his colleagues in this respect. Unlike the rest of his Wittenberg associates, he had not been an ecclesiastic previous to leaving Catholicism, nor would he ever consent to undertake the task of preacher in the Lutheran Church, or to receive Lutheran Orders, though for some years he, on Sundays, was wont to expound in Latin the Gospels to the students; these homilies resulted in his Postils. When Luther at last, in 1520, persuaded him to marry the daughter of the Burgomaster of Wittenberg, he thereby succeeded in chaining to the scene of his own labours this valuable and industrious little man with all his vast treasures of learning. At the end of the year Melanchthon, under the pseudonym of Didymus Faventinus, composed his first defence of Luther, in which he, the Humanist, entirely vindicated against Aristotle and the Universities his attacks upon the rights of natural reason.

  As early as December 14, 1518, Luther, under the charm of his friend’s talents, had spoken of him in a letter to Johann Reuchlin as a “wonderful man in whom almost everything is supernatural.” On September 17, 1523, he said to his friend Theobald Billicanus of Nördlingen: “I value Philip as I do myself, not to speak of the fact that he shames, nay, excels me by his learning and the integrity of his life (‘eruditione et integritate vitae’).” Five years later Luther penned the following testimony in his favour in the Preface at the commencement of Melanchthon’s Exposition of the Epistle to the Colossians (1528-29): “He proceeds [in his writings] quietly and politely, digs and plants, sows and waters, according to the gifts which God has given him in rich measure”; he himself, on the other hand, was “very stormy and pugnacious” in his works, but he was “the rough hewer, who has to cut out the track and prepare the way.” In the Preface to the edition of his own Latin works in 1545 he praises Melanchthon’s “Loci” and classes them amongst the “methodic books” of which every theologian and bishop would do well to make use; “how much the Lord has effected by means of this instrument which He has sent me, not merely in worldly learning but also in theology, is demonstrated by his works.”

  The extravagant praise accorded by Luther to his fellow-worker was returned by the other in equal measure. When deprived of Luther’s company during the latter’s involuntary stay at the Wartburg, he wrote as follows to a friend: “The torch of Israel was lighted by him, and should it be extinguished what hope would remain to us?... Ah, could I but purchase by my death the life of him who is at this time the most divine being upon earth!” A little later he says in the same style: “Our Elias has left us; we wait and hope in him. My longing for him torments me daily.” Luther was not unwilling to figure as Elias and wrote to his friend that he (Melanchthon) excelled him in the Evangel, and should he himself perish, would succeed him as an Eliseus with twice the spirit of Elias.

  We cannot explain these strange mutual encomiums merely by the love of exaggeration usual with the Humanists. Luther as a rule did not pander to the taste of the Humanists, and as for Melanchthon, he really entertained the utmost respect and devotion for the “venerable father” and “most estimable doctor” until, at last, difference of opinion and character brought about a certain unmistakable coolness between the two men.

  Melanchthon, albeit with great moderation and reserve, never quitted the reformer’s standpoint as regards either theory or practice. Many Catholic contemporaries were even of opinion that he did more harm to the Church by his prudence and apparent moderation than Luther by all his storming. His soft-spoken manner and advocacy of peace did not, however, hinder him from voicing with the utmost bitterness his hatred of everything Catholic, and his white-hot prejudice in favour of the innovations. He wrote, for instance, at the end of 1525 in an official memorandum (“de iure reformandi”) intended for the evangelical Princes and Estates that, even should “war and scandal” ensue, still they must not desist from the introduction and maintenance of the new religious system, for our cause “touches the honour of Christ,” and the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone in particular, so he says, “will not suffer the contrary.” Why heed the complaints of the Catholics and the Empire? Christ witnessed “the destruction of the Kingdom of the Jews” and yet proceeded with His work. According to this memorandum there was no need of
waiting for the Pope’s permission to “reform” things; the people are everywhere “bound to accept the doctrine [of Luther]” while evangelical Princes and authorities are “not bound to obey the edicts [of the Empire]; hence, in fairness, they cannot be scolded as schismatics.” For such a ruthless invitation to overturn the old-established order Melanchthon sought to reassure himself and others by alleging the “horrible abuses” of Popery which it had become necessary to remove; the war was to be only against superstition and idolatry, the tyranny of the ecclesiastical system challenging resistance.

  Then and ever afterwards the Pope appeared to him in the light of Antichrist, with whom no reconciliation was possible unless indeed he yielded to Luther.

  In the same year in which he wrote the above his correspondence begins to betray the anxiety and apprehension which afterwards never ceased to torture him, due partly to what he witnessed of the results of the innovations, partly to his own natural timidity. The Peasant War of 1525 plunged him into dismay. There he saw to what lengths the abuse of evangelical freedom could lead, once the passions of the people were let loose. At the express wish of the Elector Ludwig of the Palatinate he wrote in vigorous and implacable language a refutation of the Peasant Articles; the pen of the scholar was, however, powerless to stay the movement which was carrying away the people.

  A work of much greater importance fell to him when he was invited to take part in the Visitation of the churches in the Saxon Electorate, then in a state of utter chaos; it was then that he wrote, in 1527, the Visitation-booklet for the use of the ecclesiastical inspectors.

  In the directions he therein gave for the examination of pastors and preachers he modified to such an extent the asperities of the Lutheran principles that he was accused of reacting in the direction of Catholicism, particularly by the stress he laid on the motive of fear of God’s punishments, on greater earnestness in penance and on the keeping of the “law.” Luther’s preaching of the glad Evangel had dazzled people and made them forgetful of the “law” and Commandments. According to Melanchthon this was in great part the fault of the Lutheran preachers.

  “In their addresses to the people,” he complains in 1526, “they barely mention the fear of God. Yet this, and not faith alone, is what they ought to teach.... On the other hand, they are all the more zealous in belabouring the Pope.” Besides this they are given to fighting with each other in the pulpit; the authorities ought to see that only the “more reasonable are allowed to preach and that the others hold their tongues, according to Paul’s injunction.” “They blame our opponents,” he writes of these same preachers in 1528, “for merely serving their bellies by their preaching, but they themselves appear only to work for their own glory, so greatly do they allow themselves to be carried away by anger.”

  “The depravity of the country population” he declares in a letter of the same year to be intolerable; it must necessarily call down the heavy hand of God’s chastisement. “The deepest hatred of the Gospel” was, however, to be found “in those who play the part of our patrons and protectors.” Here he is referring to certain powerful ones; he also laments “the great indifference of the Court.” All this shows the end to be approaching: “Believe me, the Day of Judgment is not far distant.” “When I contemplate the conditions of our age, I am troubled beyond belief.”

  Regarding his recommendation of penance and confession during the Visitations, a conversation which he relates to Camerarius as having taken place at the table of a highly placed patron of the innovations, is very characteristic. A distinguished guest having complained of this recommendation, the patron chimed in with the remark, that the people must “hold tight to the freedom they had secured, otherwise they would again be reduced to servitude by the theologians”; the latter were little by little re-introducing the old traditions. Thus you see, Melanchthon adds, “how, not only our enemies, but even those who are supposed to be favourably bent, judge of us.” Yet Melanchthon had merely required a general sort of confession as a voluntary preparation for Holy Communion.

  Melanchthon was also openly in favour of the penalty of excommunication; in order to keep a watch on the preachers he introduced the system of Superintendents.

  In the matter of marriage contracts his experience led him to the following conclusion: “It is clearly expedient that the marriage bond should be tightened rather than loosened”; in this the older Church had been in the right. “You know,” he writes, “what blame (‘quantum sceleris’) our party has incurred by its wrong treatment of marriage matters. All the preachers everywhere ought to exert themselves to put an end to these scandals. But many do nothing but publicly calumniate the monks and the authorities in their discourses.” And yet in the same letter he sanctions the re-marriage of a party divorced for some unknown reason, a sanction he had hitherto been unwilling to grant for fear of the example being followed by others; he only stipulates that his sanction is not to be announced publicly; the sermons must, on the contrary, censure the license which is becoming the fashion.

  Any open and vigorous opposition to Luther’s views, so detrimental to the inviolability of the marriage tie, was not in accordance with Melanchthon’s nature. He, like Luther, condemned the religious vows on the strange ground that those who took them were desirous of gaining merit in the sight of God. Hence he too came to invite nuns to marry. And yet, at the same time, he, like Luther, again declared virginity to be a “higher gift,” one which even ranked above marriage (“virginitas donum est praestantius coniugio”).

  He was gradually drawn more and more into questions concerning the public position of the Lutherans and had to undertake various journeys on this account, because Luther, being under the Ban, was unable to leave the Electorate, and because his violent temper did not suit him for delicate negotiations. Melanchthon erred rather on the side of timidity.

  When, in 1528, in consequence of the Pack business, there seemed a danger of war breaking out on account of religion, he became the prey of great anxiety. He feared for the good name and for the evangelical cause should bloody dissensions arise in the Empire through the fault of the Princes who favoured Luther. On May 18 he wrote to the Elector Johann on no account to commence war on behalf of the Evangel, especially as the Emperor had made proposals of peace. “I must take into consideration, for instance, what a disgrace it would be to the Holy Gospel were your Electoral Highness to commence war without first having tried every means for securing peace.” There can be no doubt that the terrible experience of the Peasant War made him cautious, but we must not forget, that such considerations did not hinder him from declaring frequently later, particularly previous to the Schmalkalden War, that armed resistance was allowable, nay, called for, nor even from going so far as to address the people in language every whit as warlike as that of Luther. In the case of the hubbub arising out of the famous forged documents connected with the name of Pack, Luther, however, seemed to him to be going much too far. “Duke George could prove with a clear conscience that it was a question of a mere forgery and of a barefaced deception,” got up to the detriment of the Catholic party. On Luther’s persisting in his affirmation that a league existed for the destruction of the Evangelicals, and that the “enemies of the Evangel” really cherished “this evil intention and will,” Duke George did, as a matter of fact, take him severely to task in a work to which Luther at once replied in another teeming with unseemly abuse.

  Melanchthon, like the rest of Luther’s friends who shared his opinion, saw their hopes of peace destroyed. They read with lively disapproval Luther’s charges against the Duke, who was described as a thief, as one “eaten up by Moabitish pride and arrogance,” who played the fool in thus raging against Christ; as one possessed of the devil, who in spite of all his denials meditated the worst against the Lutherans, who allowed himself to be served in his Chancery by a gang of donkeys and who, like all his friends, was devil-ridden. Concerning the impression created, Melanchthon wrote to Myconius that Luther had indeed tried to e
xercise greater restraint than usual, but that “he ought to have defended himself more becomingly. All of us who have read his pages stand aghast; unfortunately such writings are popular, they pass from hand to hand and are studied, being much thought of by fools (‘praedicantur a stultis’).”

  It was only with difficulty that he and his Wittenberg friends dissuaded Luther from again rushing into the fray.

  In 1529 Melanchthon, at Luther’s desire, accompanied the Elector of Saxony to the Diet of Spires. The protest there made by the Lutheran Princes and Estates again caused him great concern as he foresaw the unhappy consequences to Germany of the rupture it betokened, and the danger in which it involved the Protestant cause. The interference of the Zwinglians in German affairs also filled him with apprehension, for of their doctrines, so far as they were opposed to those of Wittenberg, he cherished a deep dislike imbibed from Luther. The political alliance which, at Spires, the Landgrave of Hesse sought to promote between the two parties, appeared to him highly dangerous from the religious point of view. He now regretted that he had formerly allowed himself to be more favourably disposed to Zwinglianism by the Landgrave. In his letters he was quite open in the expression of his annoyance at the results of the Diet of Spires, though he himself had there done his best to increase the falling away from Catholicism, and, with words of peace on his lips, to render the estrangement irremediable. In his first allusion to the now famous protest he speaks of it as a “horrid thing.” His misgivings increased after his return home, and he looked forward to the future with anxiety. He was pressing in his monitions against any alliance with the Zwinglians. On May 17, 1529, he wrote to Hieronymus Baumgärtner, a member of the Nuremberg Council: “Some of us do not scorn an alliance with the [Zwinglian] Strasburgers, but do you do your utmost to prevent so shameful a thing.” “The pains of hell have encompassed me,” so he describes to a friend his anxieties. We have delayed too long, “I would rather die than see ours defiled by an alliance with the Zwinglians.” “I know that the Zwinglian doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ is untrue and not to be answered for before God.”